ANCHORAGE, ALASKA — Peter Pan Seafood Company recently welcomed Michael De Caro to its team as vice president of retail sales and product development. In this position, De Caro will lead the team in developing new retail items and portion control, playing an important role as the company produces more value-added products this year.  

Peter Pan came under new ownership at the beginning of 2021. One of the core values of the new company is to produce extraordinary products that delight and satisfy, with an emphasis on quality standards and a commitment to excellence that is second to none. With years of experience in the industry and a vast knowledge of the species of Alaska fish, De Caro will help carry out the company’s core values, according to the company.  

“Michael has so much knowledge, from flatfish to octopus and everything in between,” said Jon Hickman, vice president of operations. “He is a great addition to our current knowledge base, and he will help us utilize the resource and produce more value-added products here at home.”   

De Caro says that he and the team at Peter Pan are focused on producing more value-added products domestically, rather than exporting the resource overseas for processing. This will allow Peter Pan to be responsive to the market and what its customers are looking for, and, with less back and forth between multiple facilities, they will have great traceability of the product. 

“Peter Pan is not afraid to be unconventional, that’s part of what was so attractive to me,” De Caro said. “Seafood is an old industry, and there is a lot of stagnation. Processors put out the same product day after day, Peter Pan is looking to push things further and take the industry to the next level.”